“Not that the police care one whit who we eliminate or not,” I said.

  “Not having contacts in those circles is bad enough,” Bernie said, “but they’re all based on the West Coast, and few of my financial connections reach that far.” She lifted her hands off the steering wheel and flexed her long fingers. I did not want to know what Bernie meant by financial connections. She’d been a forensic accountant at a major Manhattan criminal law firm. She knows how to sort through mazes of shell companies; she can parse a set of books as high as a mountain down to one important line and uncover that single monetary indiscretion that will send a man to jail for the rest of his life. Or not. A few minutes on the computer, and Bernie can come away with information about people that I suspect wasn’t obtained within the strict bounds of legality.

  “Therefore,” Rose said, “we have to focus our efforts on where we can learn things.”

  “What about the restaurant business?” I asked.

  “What about it?” Bernie said as she steered the car off the coast road and headed toward the business district of the small town of North Augusta.

  “Tommy was a chef. Remember?”

  “And?”

  “And? I know people who work in New York City restaurants.”

  Rose twisted in her seat and gave me a big smile. “So you do. Bernadette and I forgot about that. Bernie, perhaps Lily can be of help to us for once.”

  I rolled my eyes, but my grandmother had already turned away.

  * * *

  North Augusta’s a busy place in summer, and today was no exception. The sidewalks were crowded with shoppers, and every parking space on the main street and in the parking lot next to the pier was taken. People went into the charming tourist and artisan shops and came out with big smiles and bulging bags. Lines were long outside the ice cream and coffee shops lining the boardwalk, and patrons waited for tables on the shaded restaurant patios. Brightly colored flowers and variegated foliage spilled out of baskets hanging from lampposts, and dappled sunlight broke through gaps in the tree canopy to fall on slow-moving vehicles.

  Somehow a parking space always appears when Bernie needs one, and as we approached North Augusta Bakery, a BMW convertible with the top down and New York license plates slipped into the traffic in front of us and Bernie maneuvered into its spot.

  I’d not paid a great deal of attention to the bakery before, so today I stood on the sidewalk, checking it out. I’d never been inside, and although Bernie had encouraged me to investigate the competition prior to the arrival of the TV show, I hadn’t. I knew we were completely different establishments, and I also knew that if I saw something they did better than me, I’d be tempted to change my entire menu. Better not to know.

  As Edna had reported, the flower boxes in the windows and the urns on either side of the door overflowed with fresh blooms. The glass in the windows sparkled in the sunlight, and the bright red paint on the window frames and the door looked fresh.

  Nothing wrong, nothing at all, with sprucing up your place for the cameras. I’d done the same myself.

  Bernie held the door for Rose and me, and we went inside. It was quarter after three and the bakery closed at four, so the open shelves lining the back wall were mostly empty, but my nose twitched at the scent of freshly made bread rising from the unclaimed loaves. They looked fabulous, varying between plump, round, crusty sourdough; long, thin, pale baguettes; light white bread dusted with seeds; and hearty whole wheat. A chalkboard behind the counter displayed the day’s meal offerings of soup, sandwiches, salads, and desserts. Of the three soup offerings, two were crossed out. Groups of people occupied about half of the picnic table–style benches. Paintings covered the walls, all of them with little stickers indicating they were for sale. Most of the paintings showed typical Cape Cod tourist scenes, and the quality was, I thought, good.

  Rose led the way to a table for four tucked into a quiet corner. She eyed the bench suspiciously. “Not a suitable seating arrangement for a lady in her later years,” she mumbled as she laid her cane on the table and tried to maneuver herself onto a seat. The voluminous skirts of her purple and orange dress fluttered in the wind coming from the air-conditioning vents overhead.

  “What would you like?” Bernie asked her.

  “Just a cup of tea, love. I had lunch earlier.”

  “I’ll get you a tart to go with it,” I said. “The lemon ones look nice.”

  Bernie and I took our place in front of the clerk and studied the chalkboard. The glass display case beneath the counter held a picked-over selection of donuts, tarts, and slices of cake, all that was left at the end of a busy day.

  “Help you?” said the clerk, the right age to be a high school student with a summer job.

  “I’ll have a roast beef on rye and a slice of red velvet cake,” Bernie said.

  “I’ll try the sweet potato soup with half a ham sandwich,” I said. “And a lemon tart and tea, please.”

  “What type of tea?”

  “What do you have?”

  “Chamomile, lemon, green, black. Iced too.”

  “Black tea. Hot. With milk.”

  “We’ll bring your order over.” She handed me a tent-shaped card with the number twenty written on it.

  “Nice enough place,” I said as I climbed over the bench seat.

  Rose sniffed. “A veneer of recent and hasty improvements.”

  “The food has to be good if it was chosen for the show,” I said.

  “Not necessarily,” Bernie said. “They want conflict, remember? Conflict and contrast. No one criticized your cooking, not to your face, anyway, so they might have been saving all the nastiness for the next place. You were probably lucky you were chosen to go first in this round.”

  A boy dropped a mug onto the table.

  Rose recoiled. “What may I ask is this?”

  He blinked. “Tea. Didn’t you order tea?”

  “This is tea the way a single tomato is pasta sauce.” She picked the tea bag up between her thumb and index finger, as though displaying a particularly dangerous sort of insect. “Tea needs to be—”

  “Thank you,” I said. “It’s fine.”

  He threw Rose a look, gave his head a shake, and walked away.

  Bernie chuckled.

  “How long,” I asked, “have you lived in America, Rose?”

  “I believe you know the answer to that, love.”

  “Long enough to know that Americans are not always familiar with the fine art of preparing tea.” I indicated the stout white mug containing lukewarm water and the tea bag on a saucer, next to a single-serve plastic container of cream.

  “Well, they should be,” Rose said, not for the first time. And, despite any intervention from me, unlikely to be the last.

  The boy brought the rest of our order. He eyed Rose warily as he put the plates on the table, and then he slipped away.

  “Sort of like this lovely slice of cake.” I pointed to the red layers separated with a thick layer of vanilla buttercream, and more buttercream spread on the top and sides. “Not a speck of jam to be seen. I loathe jam on cake, and I can’t understand why the English use it so much. Next time I’m in England, I’ll tell everyone I meet that. I’m sure they’ll appreciate hearing from me.”

  Bernie wiggled her eyebrows, and Rose pretended not to have heard me.

  I leaned over the bowl of bright orange soup and breathed deeply. It was thick and creamy and smelled wonderful, fragrant with roasted vegetables and strong spices. The pieces of bread holding the sandwiches together were thickly sliced, obviously made in-house, and packed with filling.

  “There’s a time for a doorstop of a sandwich like this one,” Bernie said, “and a time for a delicate little one, such as Lily serves.”

  I lifted my sandwich to my mouth, but it didn’t make it all the way.

  “Look what the cat dragged in.” The owner and head baker emerged from the kitchen. She did not look happy to see us.

  “Good afternoon, Allegra,” I said politely.

  She stood by our table, hands on her adequate hips, glaring down at us. She wore an askew hairnet and a gray apron with greasy fingerprints on the sides and a smear of chocolate across the bib.

  “You should ask Lily to show you how to make a proper cup of tea, dear,” Rose said, not at all helpfully.

  Allegra ignored her and spoke directly to me. “What are you doing here?”

  “Having lunch,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve been told you make a nice lunch.”

  “See?” Bernie held up her sandwich as proof.

  “I’d like you to leave.” Allegra called to the young woman behind the counter, her voice booming off the walls. “Lola, refund these women their money.”

  People at adjoining tables froze mid-bite or mid-sip and stared. Bernie put down her sandwich. Rose had pushed her mug to one side and was nibbling on her lemon tart.

  I spread my hands. “We’ll leave if you want us to, but I don’t know what we’ve done.”

  “Done! What you’ve done!” Allegra’s voice began to rise. Patrons exchanged worried glances. The boy who’d served our food came out of the kitchen. “You ruined my big chance. I was going to beat your foolish little whim of a so-called bakery, and I was going to go on to win the whole competition. And you”—a short, blunt finger stabbed the air in front of my face—“you ruined it.”

  Bernie slowly got to her feet.

  “I didn’t do anything,” I said, trying to keep my voice low and under control. “A man died at my place, yes, and that’s terrible, but it wasn’t my doing.”

  “With the All-America Bakes! trophy in the front window, I’ll finally . . . finally . . . be able to sell this place my mother saddled me with and get out of this dump of a town. You had to put an end to that, didn’t you? Well, this isn’t over, mark my words.”

  “Lily has no words to mark,” Bernie said. “The shoot hasn’t been canceled, far as we know. The higher-ups still have to decide.”

  “Without Tommy Greene, who knew good, solid, practical American baking when he saw it, not a fancy lady’s whim.”

  The four people at the table by the window threw a few bills down, hastily gathered up their belongings, and scurried away, glancing nervously over their shoulders as they went.

  “It’s okay, Auntie A.” The waiter put his hand hesitantly on Allegra’s shoulder. “These ladies are leaving.” His eyes pleaded with me, and he jerked his head toward the door.

  “We’ll leave, but I’m sorry you feel that way,” I said. “I wanted to take the opportunity to see your place and try your food. That’s all. It is very good. What I had of it, anyway.”

  “Don’t try to make nice to me,” Allegra said.

  “Okay.” Bernie took one step toward Allegra. She towered a good eight inches over the other woman. When we were kids, I called Bernie the Warrior Princess—come to think of it, I still do—with her lean, near six-foot frame, flaming red curls, and flashing green eyes. “We won’t make nice. Instead, I’ll ask you straight out why you’re accusing Lily of having had anything to do with the death of Tommy Greene, when she didn’t have the slightest reason to do so. You, however, are severely overreacting, so overreacting I have to wonder if you’re trying to deflect responsibility.”

  “That’s not fair,” the server said.

  “Keep out of this, Larry.” Allegra shook off the boy’s hand and stood her ground, her pointed chin tilted, staring up at Bernie. “I’m not saying she wanted Tommy Greene to die, but it worked out well for her. Now she won’t have the humiliation of losing to the likes of me.”

  “As has been said, the show’s not canceled yet,” I said. “This is a useless conversation. Rose, let’s go.”

  “But I haven’t finished my tea, love. You can’t rush a nice cuppa.” Rose smiled at me.

  “You English people stick together, don’t you?” Allegra said. “You think I didn’t hear the old lady and Tommy chatting about the good old days back in the old country?”

  “I’ve never called England the old country in my life.” Rose’s accent thickened and broadened so much, I could almost see the steep, narrow streets and verdant green hills of Yorkshire spreading out behind her. “I’d be more than happy to stop by one day and teach your staff how to make a proper cup of tea. We old ladies are still good for something, you know.”

  Angry red splotches stood out on Allegra’s pale face, a vein pulsed in her neck, and her eyes were narrow with rage. Her nephew shifted nervously next to her. Another group of diners had departed posthaste.

  I took Rose’s arm and pulled her to her feet. Bernie grabbed the mug to keep it from falling to the floor. No doubt if it had, we would have been presented with a bill for the broken china. “We’re leaving.” I handed Rose her cane.

  “You might not have killed the man yourself,” Allegra spat at me, “but that Cheryl Dowd did, and she works for you. You should have known better than to hire the likes of her, but there’s no talking to outsiders, is there?”

  When Rose finally had both feet on the floor and cane in hand, we headed for the door. I propelled my grandmother across the room, and Bernie fell into step behind us. We stumbled out of the bakery into the warm sunshine. Bernie, as usual, had to have the final word.

  “You’ve got a screw loose,” she called behind her.

  The door slammed in her face.

  * * *

  “Loose screw is right,” I said when we were safely back in Bernie’s car and heading out of town as fast as traffic would permit.

  “I assume Cheryl Dowd’s your Cheryl,” Bernie said.

  “That’s her maiden name. Williams told me that. Cheryl’s been married long enough to be a grandmother, so I’d say either Allegra hasn’t seen Cheryl for decades or she hasn’t forgotten old grievances.” I remembered the outright hostility between the two women when Allegra came to my tearoom on Monday. The outright hostility on Allegra’s part, at any rate. “I’m still not entirely sure what happened back there, or why she’d even think I wanted Tommy dead. Does she think I ordered Cheryl to make a hit on the man? Unbelievable.”

  “Her reasoning is somewhat confused,” Rose said. “First, she implied Tommy would prefer her bakery to yours because he liked practical food. Fair enough. Then she thought he and I were in cahoots because we’re both from Yorkshire.”

  I stared out the window, watching the coastline pass. The houses here were set back far from the road, marked by long sandy driveways and verges of tough seagrasses. “I’d say we were the unfortunate recipients of years, decades, of pent-up frustration. Allegra considers herself to be trapped in her family bakery. She needs to sell it for a good price to make a new life for herself. She saw being on the show, particularly if she won, as a way of getting that good price. Now she’s afraid that’s not going to happen, and someone, anyone, has to be blamed. That someone was first me and then Cheryl.”

  “If she hates the place that much,” Bernie said, “I’m surprised her baking’s so good. I hardly had the chance to enjoy my lunch, but everything looked good, and what I did have was great.”

  “The lemon tart was superb,” Rose said. “Better than yours, Lily. You should ask her for her recipe.”

  “I’m sure that will be forthcoming.”

  “Reactance,” Bernie said as she turned into the driveway of Victoria-on-Sea.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  It was late in the afternoon—teatime—and the sun was shining. My tearoom looked so sad, the tables unlaid, the chairs empty, the gate locked, the only sound made by cracked teacups tinkling cheerfully in the light breeze. A group of women leaned over the fence, taking pictures of the patio. Probably a garden tour group. Victoria-on-Sea was listed as the number one garden attraction in North Augusta, according to Tripadvisor. It was also the only garden attraction in North Augusta.

  “Reactance is when one accuses someone else of doing either what they themselves have done or whish they could do.,” Bernie explained.

  “You think Allegra killed Tommy Greene?” I asked.

  “I think the possibility’s there. If we’d had a nice lunch, made polite conversation with her employees without knowing they’re her relatives, we would have left none the wiser. Instead, with her temper tantrum and accusations, she placed herself at the top of my . . . our . . . suspect list.” The car came to a screeching halt at the bottom of the veranda steps. A few cars were in the B & B lot: guests back from their day at the beach or whale watching or fishing, resting up before dinner. Reilly’s SUV was gone.

  Scarlet and Josh had taken chairs on the veranda, glasses of wine in hand, a bottle in an ice bucket. A platter of cheese and crackers and bowls, the type to contain nuts or olives, rested on the table between them.

  We made no move to get out of the car. “What reason would Allegra have for killing Tommy?” I asked. “Assuming they didn’t have a past history. Did anyone see her and Tommy together on Monday or Tuesday?”

  “They might have exchanged a word or two,” Bernie said. “Allegra showed up after the filming was over on Monday, but the judges were lingering, remember, and she was watching the tea being consumed yesterday. I can’t say I noticed anything at all out of the ordinary. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have a history. Just means they didn’t perform it in public.”

  “I don’t think that’s it,” Rose said. “She was counting on Tommy preferring her type of food to yours, Lily.”

  “That shouldn’t matter,” I said. “Judging is supposed to be on the merits of the food, atmosphere, decor, and service. On how well the bakery achieves what it intends to achieve, rather than personal preference, right?”

  “You are so naive, Lily,” Bernie said.

  “Why does everyone keep saying that?”

  “Because you’re so naive, Lily.” Rose turned to me with a smile. “Don’t take offense. It’s a positive trait.”